


Threads That Bind

by LucisAbsentia



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fix-It, Force Bond (Star Wars), M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Qui-Gon Jinn Lives, Soul Bond, lifebond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23194048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LucisAbsentia/pseuds/LucisAbsentia
Summary: When Obi-Wan saves Qui-Gon and forms a lifebond with him, he does not expect his Master to block that precious bond.But Qui-Gon does, and Obi-Wan runs.
Relationships: Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 24
Kudos: 248





	Threads That Bind

After Qui-Gon manages to escape what should have been certain death - or more accurately, after Obi-Wan pours his heart and soul and lifeforce into the man - he remains in a comatose state. Obi-Wan stays at his bedside for a full month. He knows that Qui-Gon will wake, knows it because he can feel the lifebond he created shimmering between them. How he did it, he has no idea. It certainly wasn't intentional: if he was going to share his feelings with his Master, he wouldn't do it this way. But for a lifebond to form, the feelings had to be shared, didn't they? So he waits at the other's bedside, refusing to move except to take meals and exercise. Hope flutters in his chest, the hope that once Qui-Gon wakes, everything will be right. They can move past all that had happened, his near rejection of his Padawan before the Council, his insistence on training Anakin, everything.

What he doesn't expect is for Qui-Gon to block his side of the bond almost immediately upon waking.

There isn't any chance to talk. Finally, _finally_ , after a month, Obi-Wan gets to see those dark blue eyes, and they're all for him for a few moments as Qui-Gon tries to orient himself. Obi-Wan opens his mouth to speak, but barely manages to get past the joyous little "Master!" before the other is turning his face away, expression oddly shuttered. In his mind, Obi-Wan becomes aware of a great wall being built where Qui-Gon is connected to him. Words turning to ash in his mouth, he looks to his Master in dismay. 

His heart feels like lead when his Master speaks, only to utter one word. "Leave."

Obi-Wan tries to protest, but Qui-Gon only holds up a hand, silencing him. It's too much. Obi-Wan feels like something is crumbling inside of him even as Qui-Gon erects an iron wall somewhere else in his mind. He needs to - to go, anywhere, he's so confused. With this bond between them, isn't that proof of what they were meant to be? What they should have together, what they already shared?

"For you, Master," he chokes out, setting an object on the table by Qui-Gon's bed. His shorn Padawan braid, still neatly plaited, wrappings kept tidy. 

With that, he turns, leaving the room, leaving the hospital wing altogether. His devastation and confusion chase him all the way back to their rooms.

* * *

Several times more, Obi-Wan tries to visit Qui-Gon, but each time the healers tell him that his former Master refuses to see him. When he reaches out, tries to touch the bond to ask for an explanation, it's as if the walls were made of ice: the cold he feels there burns his core. His whole world feels off-kilter. When the Sith had put his blade through Qui-Gon's chest, when Obi-Wan had been certain his Master would die, he had not known what to do in a world without Qui-Gon. He'd thrown caution to the wind, opened himself up to the Force and begged for the power to save his Master. And by all things blessed, it had worked.

And now, it seems Qui-Gon does not want him in his world. If he had felt cast aside when Qui-Gon had his outburst in front of the Council, he feels utterly rejected now.

Eventually, he packs his things - he had been assigned a Knight's quarters, but hadn't moved yet, too busy seeing to Qui-Gon. But now... now he knows he couldn't be here when his Master - former Master - is discharged. Leaving these rooms had never been so difficult. Pausing in the doorway, he looks around, hating how his eyes burn and fill with tears. Maybe it was wrong of a Jedi to have cried as often as he has in the past few days, to not be able to let go of such emotion, but he didn't have to tell anybody. Qui-Gon was not dead, but to Obi-Wan he might as well be. And while he was beautifully _alive_ , and that was so much better than really being dead, Obi-Wan feels empty. 

He inhales, eyes closing. Smells sapir tea, even though Qui-Gon hasn't been there to drink it in some time - it's as if the scent just got stuck in everything and never came out. A tear manages to spill down his cheek, then another. Obi-Wan makes a hasty retreat, closing the door for what must be the last time. His Master would come back, remove his access to the room, just as easily as he'd removed Obi-Wan's access to his life. Obi-Wan takes the most isolated route to his new rooms, a sob fighting to free itself the entire way. He does not let it out. 

* * *

Obi-Wan is assigned his first mission as a Knight soon after. Qui-Gon does not come to see him off, as most Masters might do with their freshly Knighted learners, but Obi-Wan had not expected him to. It goes well, and he takes another immediately. He throws himself into work like never before, and if anyone suspects that this is because he cannot bear to stop to consider anything else or his heart might break again, they don't say anything to him. They know - oh, he knows they know. They never directly address it, but he can see it in their eyes when he makes reports over holocalls, and if it's that plain to see over the sometimes static-y blue visions, he wonders how it looks in person. It makes him glad he's not there to see it.

Sometimes, he reaches out in his mind, trying to brush against Qui-Gon. Their bond is closed off, but it is not broken. Each time, he is met with silence. Each time, that wall breaks his heart no matter how much work he's put into soothing his battered psyche.

He can't bring himself to wall up his side of the bond either.

* * *

For three years, Obi-Wan takes mission after mission, completing each one better than the last. Until one day, something goes wrong and he winds up with casualties he did not expect. One of them is - was - the young princeling he was protecting. Because of a misstep on Obi-Wan's part - a course of action not expected, but one that Obi-Wan should have foreseen, how could he not have seen what the councilor's intentions were, how was he so _blind -_ the princeling will never grow up to be king, he will not laugh again, or smile, or taste the rewards of the first harvest like the one that was occurring when Obi-Wan had arrived, he'll never know what it is to _love -_

Obi-Wan reaches for the lifebond, desperation and despair fueling a fruitless action. The wall feels more like an endless abyss this time, and Obi-Wan has nothing to bridge the gap. He feels like he is falling, and he has no one. 

* * *

If he feels any vague stab of wicked satisfaction when he hears that it is Mace Windu who trains Anakin, and not Qui-Gon, he does not voice it even in his own mind.

* * *

It's not very often, since Naboo, that Obi-Wan sees Qui-Gon, and when he does it's a brief passing in the corridors of the Temple, both pretending not to see the other. His old master had had a long road to recovery, and for the first year and a half, Obi-Wan didn't dare step foot back in the Temple where he might run into him. When he finally had returned, he'd spent as little time possible there. He still does not go back very often between missions. The pull of the bond is strong even when they are systems apart, but being in the same damn building made his teeth ache with need. He doesn't know if Qui-Gon feels it.

After Qui-Gon had recovered, the Council had allowed him to take field missions again. Little ones, at first, letting him - or, knowing Qui-Gon, forcing him - to regain his strength and recover his considerable abilities. Obi-Wan knew because Obi-Wan was constantly checking his roster. It was an indulgence he allowed himself. Qui-Gon might not want him in his life anymore but Obi-Wan needed to know what the man was doing, if he was okay.

And so it's in the fourth year after Naboo that he hears word that Qui-Gon is injured enough to be in the Temple healing wings again, in an artificially induced coma. Petrified, he hops onto the nearest ship to Coruscant. He doesn't abandon a mission, no, he'd already finished it, but he hadn't been intending on going back. But he has to see. He has to make sure that Qui-Gon gets well, that his bondmate doesn't die. And it's not about the fact that he might die too - lifebonds were exceedingly rare, and when they formed they tied the two together so much that one would not outlive the other by long. It's about the fact that despite everything, despite the way he'd been cast out, he is still deeply in love with his old Master. No one questions him as he sits by Qui-Gon's bedside, holding his hand, sometimes reaching out to stroke his hair. He sleeps at his side for two nights until the healers tell him that Qui-Gon has healed enough to begin waking him up.

Obi-Wan makes sure to be gone by the time the Master wakes, but even so, Qui-Gon's first thought upon waking is that his hand feels warm. They both feel the bone-deep ache in their bond.

* * *

Obi-Wan is not sure when exactly he starts noticing the change in his head. Gradually he becomes aware of another presence, and the day he realizes that it is Qui-Gon, he nearly has a panic attack. Somewhere in the past few months (since he'd visited him in the healer's ward, Obi-Wan knows, although he tries not to know it) the other man has begun dismantling the iron-clad walls surrounding his psyche.

He is terrified.

What is he supposed to do, after all this time? Does he go to Qui-Gon, collapse in his arms and just _forgive_ him? After the distance the man has put between them, Obi-Wan isn't sure that he can do that, no matter how devoted he has remained to the other man. But if Qui-Gon was finally coming around to the idea, then Obi-Wan doesn't think he can hold out forever. The bond ached to be soothed, ached for the gap between them to come to nothing.

One day he hears Qui-Gon's voice across their bond. It is just one word. 

_Obi-Wan_.

Obi-Wan gives a sob, grasping at the rails of the bridge, sliding down to the floor of the ship. Shudders rack his body, and he knows he is broadcasting all of his despair, all of his anxiety over the bond. He tries to flee, but for the first time Qui-Gon is the one to chase after him. For the first time he feels a warmth being pressed across the bond. For a moment, Obi-Wan wants to snap his shields up, show Qui-Gon what it felt like to be denied the bridge singing between them. 

The best he can manage is to not respond to his lifemate.

* * *

Obi-Wan doesn't go to Qui-Gon when he reaches Coruscant again. It is approaching dusk, and he needs to calm himself. He finds himself in one of the gardens, in a secluded area where he can settle in on a bench to try to meditate.

Qui-Gon doesn't approach him for a while, but Obi-Wan can feel the steady thrum of their bond as the Master comes closer. He stops in front of Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan doesn't look up. It is a while before he can even speak.

"Why?" is all he can say. He wants it to be more - but if Qui-Gon doesn't understand what he's asking, then Obi-Wan will walk away, right here, right now.

The bond is tight, as if sensing this is a pivotal moment in its development. 

Qui-Gon takes a seat in front of Obi-Wan, his legs crossed. "I was scared," he replies, his voice quiet. "And I was too proud, after I had realized my mistake." 

Obi-Wan says nothing, but a faint feeling down the bond encourages Qui-Gon to continue.

"When I woke, I couldn't make sense of very many things. I felt violated, in many ways - unfortunately I perceived our bond to be one of them." Qui-Gon rests his hands on his knees. "And I felt weak. I did something foolish on Naboo, and if not for you I would have died. At the time, I was not grateful enough to realize the gift you had given me. By the time I did - " he paused, shaking his head regretfully. "I did not know how to reach out to you. How to admit what a fool I had been."

Obi-Wan's eyes are filled with tears, though he angrily tries to force them down again. "I didn't even know what I was doing, Qui-Gon. All I could think about was saving you. And I did. And you cut me out of your life!"

"I am sorry," Qui-Gon whispers, and he wants to call the other 'love' but he knows he hasn't earned that right. "I do not deserve your forgiveness, but I would beg for it anyways." He raises his eyes to meet Obi-Wan's, and the younger man is a little shocked to see that it appears as if Qui-Gon might cry. "I have loved you for as long as you've loved me. This bond would never have formed otherwise. I am in love with you, and there is no chance of it going away. If you will have me, I would like to take full advantage of our bond. To honor it, to honor you. Let me ease this hurt. Punish me, let me earn your forgiveness, whatever you'd like." 

Obi-Wan stares for a long moment. Through the bond, he can feel the honesty in Qui-Gon's words, and the love he held for Obi-Wan. And he can feel too, that Qui-Gon had suffered the same loneliness through these years, the same weary ache that never went away. Even if it was Qui-Gon's fault, Obi-Wan wouldn't wish that on him. 

He slides off the bench, onto his knees in front of Qui-Gon, and cups the man's face in his hands. 

"I think we have both been punished enough."

* * *

For the next three days, they spend time in quiet communion together. All is not washed away by Qui-Gon's heartfelt apologies, but it is the stepping stone to rebuilding their relationship. They spend an abundance of time meditating together, sharing space and finding their centers. The bond is starting to thrive, encouraged by the proximity and the positive emotions that are washing back and forth along its strings. Obi-Wan does not - cannot yet - admit it to Qui-Gon, but the sensation is everything he had ever wished for. What he had thought was lost to him was beginning to shape his future once more. It is a little frightening to him, that even after what Qui-Gon put him through he still wants this.

But when he kisses Qui-Gon for the first time, the rapture in the other man's eyes convinces him that he has made the right choice.

Qui-Gon breathes his name like an entreaty, and he feels its weight like he had the first time he'd heard it through their bond.

They will be okay. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it! Honestly I feel like this piece is a pretty good example of the stylizations of my writing. Comments or kudos appreciated!


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